Living off the land is a foreign concept for most students in Harris County, given that they’ve grown up in a concrete jungle. The 2026 All-Earth Ecobot Challenge, hosted by CASE for Kids, exposed nearly 100 students from districts across the greater Houston area to the everyday challenges and importance of learning to quickly adapt, innovate and create new life and food sources to survive.
“Learning has to be sneaky, and that’s why we love Ecobot,” Harris County Department of Education’s Chief of Staff Danielle Bartz said. “Every year is a new challenge, and this year, they’re protecting their kingdom in creative ways, but we are also creating the next generation’s workforce by letting them play and learn about different careers.”
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The All-Earth Ecobot Challenge is an innovative engineering competition for students in grades four through eight that combines problem-solving, critical thinking and the application of solutions for real-world problems. Teams use LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Core robotics kits to design, build and program autonomous robots that can complete a series of challenges.
This year’s theme – “Kingdom of Ecobot: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rethink” – prompted students to design an imaginary kingdom, where they determined how to build homes, harvest energy and manage trash in eco-friendly ways.
“This is an amazing experience,” squealed Gianna Ochoa, a fifth grader from Sam Houston Elementary School in Galena Park Independent School District. “I have been in this program for the past two years, and I think it’s a really fun activity to do afterschool because we learn so much.”
Aliyah Howard, an Alief ISD fourth-grade student, joined the STEM club at Alexander Elementary to learn more about robots. She worked with educators and her teammates to learn coding techniques, and while she was nervous walking into the competition, she kept her head high and trusted in their work.
“I liked learning how to code the robot to bring the larvae from the pond to the chickens in the coop and collect trash,” Howard said. “Ecobot is teaching us about recycling and how to live off the land without polluting the Earth.”
Students were assigned roles to drive, code and set up the game space and were encouraged to be flexible in finding solutions to challenges throughout the competition. New this year, judges provided “ecobucks” — fake currency redeemable for snacks and toys — to students who persevered. Jacque Sanchez, an educator at Sam Houston, described the bucks as an added encouragement and kudos for teams who worked hard to learn engineering, recycling and communication skills and more.
“I’m so proud of my kids because they built most of the stuff on their gameboards and the robot alone, I was really only there to supervise,” she smiled. “Some of these guys have never worked together, but they are getting along, problem-solving and working together. It’s been amazing to watch.”
All-Earth Ecobot Challenge Winners:
Grand Champion Award – Tice Elementary, Galena Park ISD
Middle School Competition Winners:
1st Place – Alief Middle School, Alief ISD
2nd Place – RYSS Middle School at East Aldine, Aldine ISD
3rd Place – North East STEM Academy, Aldine ISD
Elementary School Competition Winners:
1st Place – Tice Elementary, Galena Park ISD
2nd Place – Lyons Elementary, Houston ISD
3rd Place – Lyons Elementary, Houston ISD